


Hot Rod Honeymoon

by archea2



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Eventual Happy Ending, Fluff and Angst, Humor, M/M, Romance, Sentient Car POV, Sex in the Impala, Sibling Incest, Spanking, Tenderness, They don't make love TO the car, but Baby does enjoy it, not directly
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-15
Updated: 2017-11-19
Packaged: 2019-01-17 20:45:08
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,769
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12373707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/archea2/pseuds/archea2
Summary: They say,the road ain't built that can make it breathe hard. But she does.Oh boy, does she ever! That deep, sweet creak, when Sam leans back into her to rest his left knee on the steering-wheel (safety first – ever since Dean’s ass jerked the handbrake off and down she ran, bang into the dead creek they’d cleansed of everything but mud. White Springs, Florida."Got her wetter than you," Dean crowed gamely, but met his doom when Sam (a) made him push, so he could (b) hand "Dr. Soggybottom" his new nametag, come their next case. Mouth-wise, Dean’s got the big tank. Sam’s got the fuel reserve.)...aka the epic love story of Dean, Sam and Baby.





	1. Chapter 1

They say - the men who made her - _the road ain't built that can make it breathe hard_. But she does.

Oh boy, does she ever! That deep, sweet creak, when Sam leans back into her to rest his left knee on the steering-wheel (safety first – ever since Dean’s ass jerked the handbrake off and down she ran, bang into the dead creek they’d cleansed of everything but mud. White Springs, Florida.  
  
"Got her wetter than you," Dean crowed gamely, but met his doom when Sam (a) made him push, so he could (b) hand "Dr. Soggybottom" his new nametag, come their next case. Mouth-wise, Dean’s got the big tank. Sam’s got the fuel reserve.)

  
The next day was swathed in the scent of sun-baked leather – their boots, his vest, her musk. The radio went ra-ra-ra in the sweltering heat, making the dashboard rattle, and the boys yowled along, off-tune like always but the beat was right, the beat was right _there:_ warm and swollen when Sam took his hum to Dean’s groin, their best record on a mile of straight road.

  
"Oh,  _babies_ ," came Dean’s coda, Sam laughing against his crotch.

Most times, it’s about speed – life catcalling _now, quick_ after a case, so Dean slews them into the next dirt path and brakes, she still on, spilling out hard rhythms while he bends Sam over the trunk and adds the tempo of his own fingers, Sam moaning all the time "like a dove on poppers" (Dean). But sometimes, it’s just about staying in, all night, closeted in each other’s arms and her upholstered love. In the dead of night, her dome light drops gold over a tanned curve of shoulder or the rut of a scar. It catches Dean’s brilliant gasp when Sam’s large hand keeps moving upwards; squeezes up Dean’s pleasure, sort of, until every pore in Dean's cock is filled with sensation as hot as the air-fuel mixture in her own cylinder.

They are so beyond the pale, those two. So often and irretrievably. At least, she has this to give.

"Our casa erotica," Sam said once. He kissed his fingers, slipped them between Dean’s neck and her own padded cheek.

"Mmmrph, " Dean agreed sleepily, drooling on both.

 

* * *

 

They barely ever do it indoors. They book two queens, because it’s what a hunter does when he’s not burning his last exhaust on liquor: beds himself and shuts eyes... 

…until one of them is slipping out into the parking yard. It’s all right. She’s there, her black gleam still a lighthouse, no matter how much of her ended up in the trash. Every piece replaced after one or another of their swan dives, but herself? Her very own sable-silver soul? Ungankable, long as they are. That ship of Theseus’s ain't got _nothing_ on her.

And so she lets him in, Sam or Dean, and waits. Until Dean or Sam tiptoes – tumbles – tears (delete as appropriate) out of bed to find his mate. Could be they’ll pound the brewski, as they say in her native Janesville, and watch the sky’s clear pentagrams, perched on her hood. Could be they’ll sleep. Or make love, belts off - hers and theirs -, because the wake woke up too many ghosts, and Sam (or Dean) ended up texting their coded words, _Impala me?_

You’d think that’s Winchespeak for _put it there and unleash the power_ , but no. Slow motion it is, giving them time to catch up with each other’s breath, each other’s soul. Tend to each other’s aches. She too, taking tongue in their moans. Ah, boys.

And, all the time she creaks and swings under their arched bodies, she remembers.

 

* * *

 

Dean. Dean was her first, as she was his. Dean it was who saw right through her shy, Bible-black looks. Saw the power and the glory that lay dormant in her (poor Mr Moriarty tried his best, but the man couldn’t tell boot from trunk and, speak of a scaredy-cat, hit the brake the moment she tried to cover his rendition of Psalm 42). And she saw, too, the man he was to be. How it would be her privilege to watch over him until his skinny childhood was a mote in her windshield - until he struck thirteen, fourteen and his dad took him to the end of the motel’s veranda where the vending machine was. (No, not the soda machine. The  _other_ one.) She watched while Sammy dozed off to her purr, a warm oblivious lump on the back seat, and Dean stood at rigid attention, and John drilled out what, knowing John, must have boiled down to "Flannel it up", "Control the muzzle direction at all times" and (oh no) "Be sure of the intended target". 

  
Even Sal Moriarty, with two ex-wives on the odometer, would have pulled a better job. 

"D’dya get me gum?" a curious Sam asked, followed by "oof!" when Dean swept the lump of him to his chest and clutched, head burrowed into the little-boy’s-smell of Sam’s hair. John had gone off to find himself a nightcap. And, in his hurry to blot out the Talk, left the key on the starter.

Which was when she made up her mind. 

She waited out another year, until Dean’s quick-change growth had ripened him, and the girl next school began to eye him from the neck down. By then, John was teaching Dean to save the day – and spare the evening, so John could spend it turning himself into a wine and liquor depot. Leaving, let her emphasize, the key on the starter. 

The first midnight Dean put it there, she stalled. Easy now, tiger. No delightin’, no ignitin’.

"Crap’s sake!" Dean wailed, and tried again. It took the better part of an hour, to say nothing of curses as colourful as the Daffodil Motel’s neon sign, but progress was made. Like, Baby steps. Go gentle into those good times. Steady does it, the key turning _just_ so under the oil of his praise. 

("She’s a _babe_?" John would ask later in the faux husk, true crow’s-caw of the hungover. "Son, that car is family. It’s not a playm – you know what, just gun her up. She’s got work to do.") 

And so she had. Two jobs in and a third on the line in Fleming, Ohio, Dean had learnt that giving her a long, full-body polish earned him her maximum rev. That it was all very well for him to jar his foot on the pedal and grab her gear stick, but if he didn’t remember to use the clutch, nothing doing, love. And to go slow on the clutch (but not too slow). And _focus_. So she blocked his speed through the first lap of the journey, while John got some shut-eye and Dean finally got her drift: took her places, hm-mm, exciting and new, with the rev between them building and building and building _and building_ until it all just – 

"Jesus Christ, Dean! That’s Fleming, behind us!"

He was her first and she was his, as much of a Heaven-brand match as poor John and Mary. No strings attached, because their bond was still invisible to him and she was glad of any joy that came to him. She watched him in his prime, her Dean, and exulted to see him put her teachings to good use with the girls: in like a lamb, out like a lion. Casual, yeah, and a heartbreaker against his best intentions (as he would be time and again, she knew, she feared), but never in cold blood. Not her Dean. He came, he saw, he offered - and they took, laughing, then a little bittersweet when he opened the car door for them and their goodbye kiss. They slept with him, but he slept, truly, peacefully slept, in her arms only. And she cherished the stolen minutes of his rest, while the witching hour passed and the dream-blue night filled her windshield.

The hours passed, the days hot on their heels, and the years followed suit. When Sam hit fifteen, all growing pains and hair, Dean tipped his thumb to the shotgun seat and said "Hop in, clot". In point of seniority, it should have been John giving the Talk. But John and Sam – uh-ah. Talking terms already brittle between them. And so Dean, who loved his boy Sam and watched over him like a mama-hen-slash-bear-slash-Terminator-2, took him for a ride and a theoretical first bite at the apple. He even put Bad Company on.

Sam listened to Dean and Mr Rodgers for all of forty seconds, a haystack brimming wih needles, then snarled "I _know_. I have eyes and I can fucking see, fucker" – which had Dean effectively lose his shit in hindsight and squint at the backseat. Too far, Dean, too far. A fourteen-year-old needs his sleep, and Sam was still feeling his way around sex, one-handedly. But he had eyes indeed, too bright and much too probing for his age; and she’d spotted them more often than not on his brother’s hands, whenever John allowed Dean to drive. Even now – even as Dean reloaded his wit ("Still a virgitarian who can’t drive"), she saw how Sammy took in the span of his palms, soft under their rough exterior, cradling her in gentle touches.

She was not surprised when, the same night, his elders deep in post-hunt stupor, it was Sam who came to her.

And cried, both hushed and open-mouthed, like any boy who sobs from his tumescent heart. Hers was breaking, but what could she do? There was Sam, stripped down to his jeans, the young planes of his back glistening with sweat as he sealed them to the shotgun seat and pushed himself into that Dean-shaped void between him and her. Ain’t nothing to be said when it’s all about love, impossible love, hers and his. So she took her silence and her solidness, the _there_ of her, and she wove them into a lullaby for him. _Give it time_ , it said. And when he returned, time and again, with more of him growing under the ratty denim, she held him while he chafed his cock and his heart to a hard stand ( _I’ll show you shotgun!)._ He would come all over his own thighs, Sam would, but once, right after, he pressed his mouth to the curve of the headrest and gave it a kiss.

That same day, he’d burnt his first dead soul.

So the kiss was an open guess. Could be Sam meant goodbye, or for Dean to feel the ghost of it on his buzzed neck. Could he’d simply, blindly kissed her for existing. Whatever it was, she kept it, the sheen of his saliva indelible long after it had dried.

She could still feel its damp imprint the day he left. There was a pecan tree across the bus station in San Saba, Texas, and the late summer rain strafing so hard it bounced off her near horizontal-like, even after Dean parked her under the tree. You could hardly see out the windows for all that water. She felt Dean will it to fall on, to fall harder, hardest. 

"I’ll cross that door too," Sam said, half for himself. 

But that door had his name on it, deep-carved, same as his bro’s. W for waiting; for the _double-you_ of them, bonded, conjoined, never to be parted. (Chuck’s words, not hers. Although it would be a decade before Sam read them aloud on the 99, his head on Dean's lap, during one of their long-ass drives). 

The tree rustled wetly overhead, and the bus lights pierced the vanished horizon.

"I’ll still be there. Me and the car, we'll be there," Dean assured him, too soon,

Sam leant forward to unbuckle his seatbelt and Dean, with the ingrained sleight of hand he’d used as a kid to turn up Sam’s trouser legs or pop his soda bottles open, leant sideways to do it for him. In the following confusion of limbs, Dean grabbed Sam’s head as he’d done God knew how many times, a desperate measure, and the kiss slipped down the headrest and back to Sam’s mouth, and from there to the side of Dean’s face, a hard press of lips, before Sam wrangled his door open and tore across the crossroads to the bus. 

Dean, speechless, stared at the crossroads.

 _Give it time,_ she told him silently.


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Gah! Sorry about the delay, guys, and thanks for the lovely kudos. Much appreciated!
> 
> Also, therapeutic spanking ahoy.

_Time_ turned out to be seven years, a very Biblical number. (Oh yeah, she knows about the Good Book. Mr Moriarty, bless his soul, liked to share its audience appeal with her – to the point that Mrs (bis) Moriarty threatened to cite Saint John of Pathmos as a co-respondent when filling up the divorce papers.) Seven years, that is, between Sam leaving them and Sam levering the back of his seat to its maximum angle so Dean could ride him a la Wild West, his shoulders sagging forward, like Sam’s hard cock and Sam’s clenched fists were all that kept Dean vertical. Which, well. Pretty much the case by then. For that was the year Dean threw to the hounds, all for the love of doing what he liked best and he liked Sam best, her too, and exploring the Great Canyon third (which they never got to, unless you mean Sam).  
  
… but she’s getting a bit ahead of the road.

  
John – never knew. Or did he? John, ever the one-track man, did not favor the rearview. Dean did, though: so many glances to the empty backseat and its lingering cold spot. Surely John noticed them? Or the girls? Not per se, no. John too had his women, his night lights, who kept the bad stuff at bay and opened their warm arms and legs for him to doze between and, in one case, slam young life between. John paid little mind to their junior counterparts until Cassie.

And then, Cassie.

Dark-bright, resilient, hard on the outside and tender as the night – a lady, a humdinger. _And_ : smart, lippy, with untamable hair and eyes the colour of maple sugar, and a college girl to boot. It was the alchimy of it that Dean fell for, and he fell hard. Called her ‘baby’, blinking his _uh?_ to her roll of eyes. She said oh, and what does your sweetheart call you, then, her mouth daring his as they sat on her porch steps after a spin outside. And Dean, being Dean, fired ‘De’ back and questioned himself later. There was that gun gone off! And John only one step behind, in full kick zone.

Dean gave it his best shot. But so did his dad, after the shot nearly ganked the First Rule of Hunterdom (you don’t talk about Hunterdom) and John Winchester had to think fast and hard.

"She’s mine?" Dean asked not much later, eyes round, green and shining like a glorified semaphore.

"Hmm," said John, his own eyelids low-set. John was a man of many depths. "Happy birthday, son."

It was late March, but none of them felt like raising the issue.

"Mine," Dean echoed in throaty reverence. It was, indeed, an hour of grace. Batman’s homecoming to the Batmobile. The great Minnesota light glanced off her brightwork, and she could tell from Dean’s eyes that it was as pure and strong to him as the silver he used to ward off evil. He slipped her ring, keyring, slowly up his thumb.

 _Bonded. Conjoined. Forever unpar_ –

"Well, get both your rears in gear. There’s a manticore waiting up north." And John watched his son tear his gaze from the West, where Stanford lay unseen across the dusty-pink dawn. ‘Young’un, all yours. Should be easy as pie.’

"Do not," Dean said, "scandalize the name of pie" – and that was that. One boy (man) prancing blissfully around to claim the driver’s seat; one man (dad) placing his two hands, palms up, to the passenger window and pressing. Not gently, and not a farewell. Try a  feral blessing? John could be terrifying in his love, and he was always the man who knew too much.

Knew when it was time to clear that second seat.

Knew for whom, and bowed out so she and Dean could careen together finally, _finally_ , into the Stanford night. Dean, once. She, twice. Picture her stopping dead in her tracks, that second time Dean endeavoured to turn her around from across Sam’s place, because, see. There’s gasoline, okay? And there’s diesel. And the Lord knows she’s had her fill of them over the years, could type a Ph.D. proposal on sulfur ratios if He’d seen fit to give her opposable fingers. But that stench on the road? All the way to Sam’s? No self-respecting car would touch it. And Sammy on the receiving end! And so she stalled. Used the one veto power resident in her and KILLED her engine, unsparingly KILLED it, capitals hers, so Dean would get her point. 

Dean lunged into that sulfur trail like a fiend and returned with Sam in his arms, if kicking and screaming. But the moment he saw her, Sam quit it. There she stood, a watchful field of inertia, her door still open from Dean’s frantic reach-out, and Sam just tumbled in. Scrabbled forth on his hands and knees, past the driver’s seat into the next, and pushed his cheek flat against the window pane, unaware that it bore his father’s fierce blessing. It was Dean who juggled the firemen, policemen, Samaritan men of all stripes, while Sam held onto her cool firm glass. When the night peaked, Dean spoke of a motel bed to tuck his brother in for a couple-two-three hours, but Sam only shook his head. He knew that if he once laid his back to a bed again, he’d be front-facing a ceiling. He shook his _no_ , and Dean let go of the wheel.

Sam spent the rest of the night facing away from Dean.

Dean spent it looking at Sam.

Rinse, repeat. The rule had been set for the next long months, any time Sam took an uneasy cat’s nap against the passenger window, under Dean’s stolen peeps. Fate had turned a refectory worth of tables that night. Now Sam was holding to his dead dear girl, locked in his grief. And Dean – yearned. With his eyes only, mind you. His hands touched, well, her. But so did Sam’s. She their go-between; they part and parcel of her, blending in with their ride like all good riders do, centaur-like, until it felt to Dean that he couldn’t tell Sam’s cheek from her own tan when Sam nestled against the upholstery.

At first. Because, as the miles went on, and the months, and the moon crescent changed sides as they rode between one job to the next, Sam too began to turn his head, softly, slowly, while he slept. By the time Dean first touched his lips (with a spoon) Sam’s head was leaning just the teeniest bit Dean-ward.

You might as well ask the tide to break away from the moon.

Six months later, they reached their highwater mark.

"Sammy, my Sammy, _no_." Dean, barely resurfaced from his near-death experience, no longer had it in him to fight. The name was his last, desperate shield, raising  up the ghost of a chubby twelve-year-old between him and the man next seat. But no Exorcisammy could keep Sam from pushing himself into that warm chest, not even when Dean reached up and groped for his own seatbelt, twisting his left wrist in it. The sweat was a brilliant gleam on his face and in the small dent above his upper lip, where Sam was kissing it. "Baby, you gotta make it stop."

 _It_ meant his dick, a hard case of life, love and libido. But Sam took his kiss to Dean’s heart, and there was no stopping that.

"Baby" stayed, slipping back and forth between their mouths.

* * *

It made the incest* less of a twosome, sort of. Like the rule on car-only sex or the ring, keyring, that Dean now took to giving Sam as a pledge/keepsake/legacy/let-me-make-an-honest-driver-of-you-shtick on regular occasions.

Which was fine by her. More than fine.

Also a good way to keep them out of trouble, now they’d grown into their freckled and dimpled prime, and it looked like every gent or lady this side of Alzheimer wanted a piece of them, not to mention a few creatures of dubious status. For a while, things were a bit rocky. Dean was under the impression that the best way to keep his cool, incest*-wise, was to carry on as if every hour in the day was chick o’clock. Sam hated it. Spent the next hours fuming like a haystack on coals and giving Dean the silent treatment, until Dean’s guilt was through the roof, at which point _Sam_ began to feel guilty and switched to devil’s advocate, treating them to long, loud, reasonable exposés on the merits of polyamory (footnotes courtesy of Havelock Ellis), while Dean yelled that he’d never ever again, okay? if Sam would only shut up.

"Baby," he would say fondly, once they were both done and panting on the backseat, in their socks, gazing at each other with identical _Welcome to Awesomeville, population: you_ smiles. Then gaze up to address her dome light. "Baby, don’tcha know that no man alive can be an angel."

(Which, yeah. Ironical, given their hereafter.)

"You Animal," Sam would laugh, looking up too. Voice a sated croon, soft-rock-soft. "Baby, tell him to treat _me_ like a lady."

*Not everybody’s cup of fuel, she gets it. But remember what these boys are, and what they’ll be up against for every day of the rest of their lives. So what if they’re up _with_ , for a change, and get a refuel of hope and joy from each other any which way? Uh? That road is ridden, right? Are those lives saved, or ain’t they? Take it from her: incest is the last snowflake on the tip of their crazy, daily, godalmighty _Titanic_ berg. There, she’s said it.

* * *

Guilt. Ah yes, that unwelcome fourth wheel. Throw it out the window, and - to quote Dean - it will come in the door without so much as a kiss-my-ass.

They had their dark times, Dean and Sam, but they pulled through. Top of the charts was the time that came after John’s death. They were all hit hard, but in Dean’s case the hit was compounded by – well. The hit’s rebound effect. As testified by her brand new windshield.

"I raised my hand to her," Dean told Sam. They had stopped on a nondescript country lane, pretty enough in the dawning light, if you had eyes for it. But Dean sat staring at his hands, and the way he spoke, you knew that his own throat was squeezing him. When Sam tried to take his hand, Dean pushed it further down between his knees.

(Theirs was low mileage at that time. Between the case hype and Hell having just gone scorched earth on their dad, they were taking things slow. Like, tricycle slow. Full-frontal was rarely if ever indulged, and only by Sam (Dean's rule). Dean was part-frontal, hands-only territory. Rearviews, let alone reartouches, strictly off the card.

Until that night.)

"But then you made her whole again."

"What, ‘cause I gave her a new ‘shield?" Dean, still eyeing his lap. "To make it up to her? Until I hit her again? Yeah, textbook behaviour."

"That’s… She’s not…" For once, Sam was lost for words. Then changed gears. "Dude, come on. Did you hear her purr? That whole leg of road, ever since we left Bobby’s? She, ah, she’s forgiven you, I think."

(She had. Why? Because a demon’s wound will fester long after it’s closed. It leaves its own sulfur, a will to hurt, and hurting was the one preferential treatment Dean gave himself. When he broke her, he wasn’t a man taking the upper hand on his girl. He was only fracturing himself the best way he knew.)

" _I don’t know how to atone_ ," Dean snarled, despair cloying his voice, and Sam grabbed his arm instead. Now as always, there was a pit with Dean's name on it, and Sam refused to leave him there.

Not when he could drag Dean forcefully out and around her.

"What are you –" Dean, half blinded by his tears, stumbled on until Sam had him shoved against her front.

"Doing? Helping you, that’s what. Now, ever. Put your hands on her.’

"What? Sammy…"

"Put. Your hands. On her. You wanna mend this, Dean?"

"The fuck you –"

Sam covered him with his body, chest to back, his arms trembling with lack of sleep but nerved by Sam's indomitable will as he braced them next to Dean’s. He put his mouth to his brother’s ear. "Look at her glass," he said. "See yourself?" Dean nodded. "Good. See me there with you?" - and she, too, saw their faces filling her glass, and looked back at them past the dust. Sam’s whisper was as clear as a song. "Do you trust me, De? To heal this for you?"

She knew from Dean’s flinch that Sam’s hands had crossed that yellow line between waist and hips. When they reappeared, he was holding Dean’s belt, folded in half. He laid it carefully on the trunk and spoke again.

"There’s no one here. Just you and us. No one to see you, or hear you, miles around. Do you want me to go on?"

" _Yeah_ ," said Dean, part-grit and part-breath, the first he’d exhaled in weeks. It caressed her metal as he lowered his cheek and laid it against her hood, closing his eyes. He never moved when Sam pushed his jeans down, first, then his boxers. Even with the fresh dawn on his exposed flesh, he stayed still. But she heard his gasp under the belt when it whistled across the air. Felt his shudder when the belt's thick width sealed itself to the meat of his upper thighs, leaving a red sting in its wake. And again. And once more.

"Baby," Dean’s mouth babbled to her steel. "Baby, sorry. So, so sorry, never again. _Never_ , sweetheart."

By the fifth stroke his tears had mingled with his saliva and he no longer spoke, only pressed his lips to her. She knew from the shudders just how careful Sam was, scalding Dean from calf to hip while sparing the swelling curves below most of the belt’s ire. They were a long shot from rest, and Dean would have to sit at least some of it out. Sam, always the strategist, kept the bottom line for the end. Drew his arm back at last, and she knew when he struck each buttock last, before he threw the belt aside, grabbed Dean’s pliant form, maneuvered him around, and dropped his own knees to the road.

She knew, before he did, how hard Sam's mouth would find Dean.

Dean abandoned his weight to her: let each tender cheek (bearing its own glowing sigil) take the soothing of her cold metal, while his terminal shudder shook her. It was a sensation she would experience once again in the years to come, when she had _Sam_ in her veins (an intimacy like none other). For the moment it was only Dean being held between them, his chastised flesh pressed upon her, as red-rose and throbbing as the fresh new dawn. He cried once, from the depth of his throat, and she felt Sam’s response; felt how Sam’s mouth asked for more of his cock with each relentless twist of tongue until Dean jolted, canting his hips off her, and Sam pushed his hands between her steel and the sensitized flesh, squeezing it lightly. His brother's cry swelled to a roar, and Sam sucked in his release, all of it, down to the last, sweet-sharp drop.

Dean slid off to the ground, but Sam was there to catch him.

(Sam, she knew now, would always be there.)

"...Keys?" he asked a few minutes later, still propped against her side. Dean – stretched out on the roadside grass with his head cradled in Sam’s lap – grunted.

"C’mon, backseat boy,’" Sam said, stroking his forehead, and Dean mumbled "I hate you", but let himself be guided back into her and laid out along the seat before he nose-dived into sleep.

Sam patted her wheel.

"It’s gonna be all right," he said. Mostly for himself, but she purred back; divided that sweet vibe between the three of them as the road grew, and the love, too, that modeled itself on the road.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Okay, this came out more schmoopy than kinky. Um...sorry? But thanks for riding this ride with me.
> 
> Like the first line of this story, the last line is a bona fide slogan for the 1960es Chevrolet. I owed Baby no less.
> 
> As always, kudos and comments much appreciated!

And, guess what? Things actually got better.

Stronger.

Lighter. 

From her long-range viewpoint, that is, and keeping in mind that light and darkness are psychotically, irrationally, erotically codependent (Chuck11:23). Sam and Dean and self, they’re kinda f… they’re, ah, karmatically challenged. Their lows? Are Cage-deep low. But their highs? Get higher every blessed time. Nobody, but _nobody_ spirals up out of karma like Dean and Sam (and self – wait for the punchline). And so, because she’s not one to chew evermore on the lows (gives her gas, and not the good sort), she will now move on to the good stuff.

Some of it comes with a dash of dark, mind you, but only so the dark compliments the bright. Same as the black rubber around her hubcaps, once Dean shines’em to a gloss.

Here goes, then. Baby’s top-ten highs.

 **10\. Her collection**. Chuck told you about the arsenal in her… bustle, ahem, and the toys in her vents. But there’s more. There's something about her that makes strangers, obliviously, entrust her with pieces of their lives while she’s taking them to safety. Cheap viaticums, dribs and drabs of _normal_ , still imbued with their body warmth because there was a body alive to sob in relief (or gasp at Sam’s Monsters 101 digest). And so she hoards their gifts against the next low, the boys huddled together and soaking in _her_ warmth, she waiting for Sam to squirm or fidget until Dean asks, "Pea up your patootie, princess?" and Sam rummages a bit, and – lo and behold! A Silver Eagle coin! _Jesus_ , Dean, did you know they’re not even circulated anymore, d’you think that old coot dropped it, the one who fainted right into your arms? Or: Look, Sammy! Rootbeer candies! Dad never let me buy them, kept sayin’ "We can’t afford dental care, kiddo". Huh. All fresh and glossy, too. Must have been that Tooth Fairy vic we – Dean, no, _wait_! We don't know that it's not bewit - oh, what the hell. Back off, grabby hands. Or again: an arcade card, Sam, _a one hundred percent genuine vinta-frickin’-fifties John Wayne card_ , can you believe this?! _Can_ you? And then they're hugging each other, light-headed and carefree, laughing their silly heads off prior to a romp and a tumble on her cushions (sorry, Grandpa Henry, _that_ legacy got a fair bit crumpled under Dean’s patootie).

 **9\. Her one-time beau, John’s Sierra truck**. Don’t get her wrong: she’s still a lady, not some wench, to quote Ms. Caro Emerald, and trucks are lousy flirts as a rule. (Don’t start her talking on _pickup_ lines.) But this one? Was a gentleman. She can vouch for his good name, although John never gave him one and to his former owner, a Minnesota farmer, he was plain Big Hulk. But he was good people. Said "Beg pardon, ma’am" every time John butted in front of them on the road. Stood by her through her recovery time in Bobby’s yard, after Sam went and fetched him from the Lincoln lot (where John had parked him prior to being tricked and made to truck old Yellow-Lights himself), and cheered her up all right. That Hulk had a great heart. And Dean made sure he ended up with a great owner – gave the poor bastard a thorough driver’s test before he handed over his daddy’s ride. Since then, she’s left word of pipe right and left– Hunters’ cars, like Hunters, have their own grapevine – and the last she heard, Hulk was retraining as a top-rank food truck, specialising in marshmallow crepes and deluxe cheeseburgers. She wishes she could tell Dean.

 **8\. That time she ran over a Hellhound**. You won’t find it in the books, ‘cause Chuck’s story editor-slash-publisher started crying and telling him these dogs were more sinned against than sinning, what with being brainwashed, and raised from puppyhood on expired food, _oh god_ , and made him cross out the passage. Yeah, bite her. Still a hit in _her_ book.

 **7\. Sam’s secret touch**. The lowest lows have always been when they pull apart, the boys, and she has to stay with one and watch the other go. Double the pain, double the divorce, because the leaver has to leave her too. By now Sam has taken to trailing a hand along her the streamlined flank, softly, every time he goes on his separate way. That stroke of fingers, for her, for keeps, is Sam’s _I’ll be back_. And he is. At the far end of the way, he is.

She remembers him post-Cage, the first time she saw him once Dean whipped the Tarp of Shame off her (FINALLY!) and drove her out of Lisa’s garage. Sammy! But he felt… lesser. Colder. Barely a glance at her. And yet, a moment before he opened her door and flumped down on her seat, a lightweight for all his meatpacking, his fingers – strayed. He touched her. Like before. And she touched him back – she knows she did; reached out from her own solid plane all the way to that soul-shaped void, and left something of her own silver with him.

(Weeks later, while Dean was fetching the duffels, he put his lips where his hand had been and whispered, "Good to see you again.")

 **6\. Stargazing**. On their best nights, they’ll light a campfire and roast whatever road snacks Dean has stashed up on the way. (Ever tried charred jerky? He swears by it.) She’ll watch the boys race each other round the flames, jumping, hollering, the whole nines, Dean’s eyes firelit to a Byzantine green. Once out of breath and bacon, the boys will quieten. Look up from their stomachs. It’s not long before they’re with her again, perched on her hood; watching the sky churn out its own fiery sigils, hundreds of thousands of them, until it feels like all of the sky is warded wall to wall. A bracing sight. All theirs, too: God’s fee to his sworn men, free and gratis.

 **5\. Her own pranks**. Think it only takes two to start a war? Then think again. Sometimes, when she’s very, very bored, or Sam and Dean are beyond trying the patience of a saint ( _pace_ Bobby), she’ll do it. See, she’s good at hoarding things, but she’s also good at hiding them. So it’s only just deserts when the ID box slips into this nook, or under that blanket, and the boys have to improvise. One day, she’ll tell you all about the Last Minute Mormon Scheme, and how Dean had thirty-four doors shut to his face until he was fairly barking "Hello! I’m Elder Wand, and I'm here to – damnit!’. (Charlie _loved_ that story.)

 **4\. Kennebunkport, Maine, May 21, 2009.** Ah, 2009. Their Doomsyear.

Now, this story starts with Dean falling asleep at the wheel at the end of a hard day’s night - the day he got his Sammy back (in a _horrendous_ yellow car. Really, Sam?). Dean himself was barely through the time portal, and he owed sleep a mounting debt. But he needed the ride; needed her touch under his hands, and needed Sam to feel himself moving on. So he drove, and she purred, and Sam didn’t cry like they thought he might have, but neither would he look his brother in the eye, 'cept by proxy (her rearview mirror). Dean smiled and smiled into the mirror, until Sammy relaxed enough to let his eyes drift shut. Maybe it was Sam's rest, or maybe watching himself go full-on Dark Crusoë had been too much for Dean, but for the first time in forever he gave in to sleep, still driving.

When Dean woke up, his cheek nuzzling Sam’s forehead, Sam was capsized against him and they were still rolling - softly - then softer, and softer still: she spending her last measure of gas on that little path she'd spotted ahead, that  led to a beach. It was still early. The light had the watercolor tint of a morning in Maine, all sun and wind, above the waves’ quiet hum. It killed Dean’s panicked growl in his throat, the hum, replacing it with a long-exhaled breath.

"...De?" Sam mumbled, and Dean moved his eyes to Sam waking up in the light.

They made love that morning. It was all they could afford – no sand in their toes, no skinny-dipping for them, when their respective bodies were still  a cosmic bounty. But they lingered. They rolled down all her windows and let the sunlight pour into her, wash over Dean’s warm kisses as he gave them to Sam, Sam’s mouth, Sam's cheeks, down his neck and over his clothed body, each kiss's strong press carrying Dean’s urge to shield Sam and ward him against the Intruder. He said nothing when Sam tugged at his clothes, feverishly, because Sam’s blood was speaking up again; was saying, while Sam, naked and shivering a little under the wind, opened himself with his own fingers, _I’m saying yes to_ _you_. _Only to you_. What could Dean do, but take that _yes_ and push back into it, sealing the gap between them? What else, but breathe - pant - pray his own _We’re good_ into the dream-clear light? Oh, it was a highlight all right.

(They made her honk twice in a row – that’s how good they were.)

 **3\. Castiel’s praise**. Ah, that angel. She's borne with his pop-up visits and his musty trenchcoat, getting mustier with each of his downfalls, rubbing on her leather. And his hiccups. Did Chuck mention the hiccups? Possibly not, because then he would have to mention that angels can travel at the speed of thought (see Thomas of Aquinas) and still get motion sickness. After gorging themselves on raw meat, for one. Or that time Dean introduced Cas to chili poutine and then went full pelt over the rumble strips, to the sound of _Achilles’ Last Stand_.

"Dark thou art, but comely," Castiel said later, still bent double at the waist. She steeled herself, but no, he was merely inspecting her headlights. An earnest hiccup. "Thy cheeks are comely with rows of jewels – "

"Cas, you done hitting on my Baby?"

"I believe it is customary for the _car_ to hit us." He was finally straightening up. "Now I understand why your Heaven is a Road, Dean. She’s – a very special vehicle."

"Oh yeah. You should see her at a red light challen–"

" _For their chariots shall rage in the street and j _o_ stle one against another in the broad way_s," Castiel cut in, raspily intent. " _They shall seem like torches, they shall run like the lightning_."

Dean shot a wannabe subtle glance at the beer cooler. Sam said, "It’s a quote, Dean."

"So what, he’s telling us the Prophets prophesied drag racing?"

"Only Nahum," Cas said. "He loved all things fast and furious. And a dollop of tree-oil for his hair. Nothing new under the sun, Dean."

Spoken as a true angel, but spoken too soon, as the following months brought a cargo load of _new_. Including the monster Alphas, which you really, really do not want to bump into at night, as Dean had the occasion to tell Sam after he got home late, got yelled at, then got cuddled with in the bunker’s garage. (By then, the boys had thirty rooms of their own, but still reconvened in her after a bad time.)

It was the Alpha Werewolf, Dean explained. In the flesh – and into it, jaw-deep. (He shivered. Sam hugged him tighter and kicked the burger bag diplomatically under his seat.) _Very_ big and _very_ bad, teeth like bones, with a mean streak and next-level survivor skills. Dean, being Dean, had called him Grandma. The Alpha hadn’t liked that one bit, although he was too focused on turning new pack members to give Dean a taste of his tooth.

"His name is Fenrir," Castiel said, coalescing on the back seat. Luckily for the trespasser, it was still unoccupied. He leant down; picked up the bag. "Ah, a fornicating picnic. I see. May I have some? Or is the car on an Atkins diet?"

"Jesus _God_ , Cas!"

She liked him. He saw through her before they did, and treated her with the respect due to a soulmate that, one day, would run her mates up the Axis Mundi like lightning, you-betcha.

"There exists," Castiel said next, "a fetter. Made for the Great Wolf in the age before man - before Adam was a twinkle in my Father’s eye. I was there. I stood in the frost-covered caves and watched the dwarves craft it for Odin." He shook his head. "I could make another, but – it has to be made of six impossible things."

"Before breakfast?"

Dean glared. Castiel looked baffled. "Quote," said Sam. "Sorry."

Thus began the quest for the six impossibles, given that some of the originals no longer qualified. Fish, it turned out, can breathe underwater. Bearded women win at Eurovision. On the other hand, killing Death _was_ unheard-of. As was the non existent note which Sam hits on a regular basis in the course of their sing-/rev-alongs. A beaming Castiel diagnosed the note as a ‘B-three-quarters-sharp’, a musical dodo, and said that it would do. Five down, one to go. Which led to…

 **2\. Here Rides the Bride**. …Dean taking her to San Diego and buying her a sable wax coat (for a full-blooded American male, Dean can be eye-rollingly Old Europe). Next thing she knew, they were in Vegas, Baby! and Dean was telling Sam, "If marrying your brother ain’t the thing, by which I mean the _unthing_ thing, then I don’t know what is. Eh, sweetheart?" He stroked her sweet-oiled wheel lovingly. "You up to getting us down the aisle?"

"Are you sure it’s me you’re marrying?" Sam said, laughing, leaning sideways to beg a kiss. They were falling in love again. Falling all over her and each other. They did that, year in, year out: they grew younger for a while, bright-eyed and goofy, as if their lives had just been delivered to them again, while she basked in their joy.

The aisle was a drive-thru. She drove them down to the open window and the lady behind it, her upper half thoroughly sequined, topped with an avuncular smile as she asked for IDs.

Dean said "If you’ll give us a minute, ma’am". Then made a show of licking his thumb; smirked; rubbed it to the tender jut of Sam’s lower lip and said, "Pink’s for loyalty."

"…The _other_ finger, dear," the lady told Sam placidly.

At the other end of the drive, they paused again. You can’t be a hunter and keep gold on you. Way too risky, it being a magnet for dragons, Leprechauns and about half the supernatural whatnot. So the boys took it off their fingers, and took the key off her ignition, and then Dean linked all their rings together before he pushed the key back in.

They are still linked to this day.

And then they drove on to Jean-Georges Steakhouse and maxed out their last credit card on "honeymoon garlic ribs" (Dean). As you do.

 **1\. Meet the Parent**. The road went on. As it does, and she’s learnt to roll with it by now.

And then, the Darkness.

Trying to steal her man, and not even the one who'd set her free after so much toil and trouble, oh no: the other one. Sam.

Ah well. Guess that’s what spending a gazillion years under the Tarp of Shame does - leaves you a bit addled up there. Bit off the Mark. _Ha_. Still, the old girl got it going. Dark, tall and beautiful – pity that slot was already filled in Dean’s heart, right? Miss Amara sure knew it when they faced off one another on that road, Sam at the wheel, she glaring daggers at him through the glass. Sam braked and tried to back, but failed, a fixed target for her blasts. And she, yours truly, she couldn’t – not Sammy, not again, not yet, not _ever_ , and so she did what she'd never done before in all her hours of need. Did it with her smoke, did it with her roar, did it with everything she had.

The next instant, she was dropping on all four and the bunker’s lower floor.

"Funny," Chuck said later, sidling up to her with a beer in hand. "That they never thought to ask whose prayer I answered."

The night had fallen and she was still indoors. No time to move her out. The boys were out of sight, probably figuring out how to save Dean from blacking out on his marriage vows, so to speak. 

"What you did," Chuck said. "I, uh, I’m not too sure my editor will be happy with it. There’s a Christine precedent, you know, makes sentient car romance a bit skeevy. But you should know that I was deeply, sincerely moved by your call."

Her call was _Cripes!_ , she told him in good faith. Not much of a prayer. Still, Chuck said, shaking his head. He knew all about Wisconsinisms, and to him _Cripes_ was as good as _Christo_ when it came to that fundamental call to God described by every medieval mystic. She had to agree, and the next hour was spent in easy camaraderie, chatting about this and that – oils, for one thing, holy and profane. Free agency. Free indirect style. Families, his and hers. He sang for her – quite a nice voice, if a little reedy on the high notes – and she told him about Vegas and her new wax coat. When midnight struck, Chuck sighed again.

"I have to go," he said. "Can’t say I’m looking forward to tomorrow, but, hey, I loved our talk. And, y’know, I’m not big on the whole ‘ask and ye shall receive’ – dear me, the Borgias’ Christmas lists! – but if anyone deserve a freebie…" And, with that, he laid both hands on her hood – where Dean’s had been, all those years ago, in love and apology - and let them rest a little.

Then he was gone, and she never saw him again.

For a while, she didn’t think back to his words. Mary Winchester was risen, and once again the road plunged straight into their home, tearing it across and tearing them apart. For, once again, the boys were on a low. Overjoyed at first, the two of them aching with a great fevered love for their mom, but soon overwhelmed by more than joy and love. It wasn’t Mary’s fault, mind you. She couldn’t take what _newborn_ dished out to her, and who could blame her? It’s not like there was a Mother Tablet at hand, to tell her how to lock this down and open that up, or why the boys winced every time she told them about the ‘normal life’ she'd wanted for them. She had no idea why, but every wince cut her to the quick. And they, stupid boys, had no idea that _normal_ is Momspeech for _happy_ , _whichever way._  Sam got it, finally, but Dean was too busy cranking up the self-loathing to hear it, and Kevin Tran (son, martyr, designated translator) could no longer help them out, and...

Now for that punchline.

"Maybe we gotta stop this," Dean is saying. Picture the boys en route to a job neither feels like taking, on a ten-hour drive to what is really shaping out to be a point of no return. "Maybe that’s what she –"

"Oh, so that’s your point? That, that this between us is so shameful Mom has dumped us like _lepers_ , and she won’t come back until we, what, cleanse ourselves? Fumigate Baby, while we’re at it?"

The worst thing is, Dean actually lets that pass.

"Okay, Dean. Okay. Tell you what. You want a divorce? Then you say it, clear and loud. You don’t give me that maybe crap. And don’t you _dare_ put it on me. Because, man, what we have – our love, our bond – that’s no sin to me. If anything, it’s what keeps us on the light side of the Force. It's… it's our grace, Dean.’

"Oh, so you think we’re next-level material? You’n'me? Come on, Sam. We’re next-level fucked up, if even Mom can spot it. Always were, always will be – as long as you hitch my ride."

The rust in Dean’s voice is getting to her. She shudders; she sways; and that’s when Sam flings his door wide open. Next thing she knows, Dean is slamming the brakes home and the road tar is ripping her raw while she goes on a wheel and a – no, no time for a prayer, not when Sam is out, his door left gaping like a wound. Dean curses and kills the engine, but Sam is already getting up, knees and hands badly grazed, but walking; hobbling up the road even as the next car looms up. It’s just her luck that there’s one on the road - a passing truck.

A passing _yellow_ truck. Insult, meet injury.

She waits for Dean’s roar, the go-to for her own rev up. But Dean is staring at the road. The truck fades to a yellow smudge in her rearview, Sam invisibly aboard, and the new silence fills the road. Then, at last, Dean opens his own door. Shoves both feet out, circles her, round to her gaping side. And she knows, even before she can feel his weight again. She knows what he’s doing.

Dean stumbles into Sam’s seat, folds over and puts one fist up his mouth.

So.

So it has come to this. One lost boy, one man down, three hearts as good as ganked. What was that song again – _Baby, baby, I wanna leave you?_ Summer rolling in, Zeppelin ruling on. Awesome. Play it again, Dean.

Or don’t. Because – and that’s her one and only bone of contention with Dean Winchester: Zeppelin _sucks_.

The next sound booms like a deflagration. Dean’s head jerks up, just as her front doors are banging shut. She tries a soothing hum. Dean says "What the –", still dazed, and she lets go of the hum, riffs through her radio arsenal, until _The Power of Love_ is blasting at full volume. (Oh, give her a break. Still rock, and a classic by now.)

Not that Dean seems to mind, pop-eyed and clutching the roof handle for dear life.

The road leaps at her and she knocks it flat, gulps that first mile down, nails that power lap like it’s nobody’s business. Dean gasps "Baby…" and then " _yeah"_ , three-parts dare to one part faith, as he leans forward, his other hand pressed to her ‘shield, and lets her take over the chase.

Ah, there’s that van – _licking_ the road on a coy 51.9. Amateur!

Dean gives the driver a little wave, sticking his arm out the window as she honks. Then slows down, because God’s juice, God’s freebie to her, is already running low – but not without a fight. Not without she slews, skids, and plumps herself right across their path. Gives that big jaundiced lump plenty of leeway to brake – because History’s not repeating itself, not today, and it’s not the driver she’s into anyway.

Ah, but there he is. Clambering down, tall, handsome and flummoxed, mouth hanging open as he watches Dean slip out of _t_ he right-side door.

Dean marches forward, and Sam takes a step to him, then three, and he’s running, and then Dean wraps both arms, vine-like, round his hips and lifts Sam – Sam! – off the ground, so Dean can sit him on her warm lap and climb his brother’s without a beat.

" _Screw_ yellow car," Dean tells Sam’s mouth, crying, laughing, the two of them sinking into the moment.

And she holding her peace forever, as long as they get a share.

 

* * *

 

 

They, the strong men who made her with steel and fire, once called her _the Heartbeat of America_.

Damn right she is.

**Author's Note:**

> (Guys, I don't even know. In fact, I don't even have a driving license. Just, I love that freakin' car.)
> 
> I've probably sinned against a number of commandments when describing the Impala (vinyl vs. leather? poetic license vs. automatic?), so please forgive me. And check out the tags in the next chapters - the boys might get a bit playful.
> 
> Title quote courtesy of Jeff Beck; the first line's quote is an actual Chevrolet slogan.


End file.
